The long-delayed Energy Bill gets its second reading in Parliament, with warnings that it will fail to guarantee our future energy needs, fail to curb soaring bills, and that the ‘dash for gas’ puts progress on tackling climate change at risk.

Cambridge Labour Parliamentary spokesperson Daniel Zeichner is a member of Labour’s national policy review group on energy policy. He says that the key failure to decarbonise the power sector by 2030 is bad for the renewable sector and bad for Cambridge, which has a large number of companies developing innovative environmental products:

 “The long running squabble within the coalition has resulted in an Energy Bill which pleases no-one. By caving in to the Conservatives on the dash for gas, the Liberal Democrats have lost their environmental credibility. Labour has a very clear set of alternatives: replace OFGEM with a regulator that works for consumers; a clear route to decarbonisation of the power sector by 2030; and opening up the closed world of wholesale energy trading to make sure that when prices come down, consumers get the benefit. Since the last election, investment in renewable energy has halved -; a direct consequence of the failure of coalition energy policy.”